


In the Silence Afterward

by ibroketuesday



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Apocalypse, Darkness, M/M, mute!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-07
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-25 22:40:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/958427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibroketuesday/pseuds/ibroketuesday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Lucifer rises, Dean goes mute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Silence Afterward

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted as part of the [](http://deancastiel.livejournal.com/profile)[**deancastiel**](http://deancastiel.livejournal.com/) Renegade Angels fic exchange [here](http://community.livejournal.com/deancastiel/975100.html), for [](http://spacemonkey-699.livejournal.com/profile)[**spacemonkey_699**](http://spacemonkey-699.livejournal.com/) and her awesome prompt: _Castiel and Dean, all alone and on the run through time and space._ It was written before S5 and deviates from canon after 4x22. And many thanks to [](http://tracy-loo-who.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://tracy-loo-who.livejournal.com/)**tracy_loo_who** , my beta. All remaining errors are totally and completely her fault, not mine.
> 
> Podfic by [](http://fullondazzled.livejournal.com/profile)[**fullondazzled**](http://fullondazzled.livejournal.com/) is available [here](http://community.livejournal.com/deancastiel/1226821.html). Ebook by [destielebooks](http://destielebooks.tumblr.com) is [on tumblr](http://destielebooks.tumblr.com/post/51733209116/in-the-silence-afterward). [](http://aesc.livejournal.com/profile)[**aesc**](http://aesc.livejournal.com/) and [](http://oatmeal-queen.livejournal.com/profile)[**oatmeal_queen**](http://oatmeal-queen.livejournal.com/) collaborated on a stunning piece of art for this story; you should go [look at it](http://aesc.livejournal.com/400763.html) (spoilery for the ending).
> 
> I'm now on tumblr at [ibroketuesday](http://ibroketuesday.tumblr.com).

Dean and Sam flee the convent with the searing white light of Lucifer's rising chasing at their heels and blistering their skin. Dean doesn't feel the pain until the Impala is already twenty miles down the highway, devouring asphalt as he pushes her past the speed limit, and when it hits him, it's only because he notices Sam is ashen and panting in the passenger seat. They look each other over under the buzzing overhead in the bathroom of their motel room two hours later; the backs of their jackets and shirts are charred through, and the skin underneath is red and raw.

They patch each other up, salt the doors and windows, and Dean prepares a few of the anti-angel sigils he's seen Castiel and Anna use. They lie on their stomachs on the same bed and don't sleep. In the morning, the sun is late to rise, and when it does, it's sullen and dim and crouched behind towering stormclouds.

They get in the Impala and aim for Chuck's.

That evening, it rains ruddy, brackish water that looks a little too much like blood.

*

Chuck's house is little more than a pile of rubble.

Dean and Sam duck under the police tape and pick their way around the collapsed walls, the smashed crockery and bottles of alcohol, the rebars jutting from heaps of wood and crumbled bricks, tables and chairs and the shredded remains of Chuck's bed. There are no bodies, no blood, not even a scrap of a tan trench coat, but Dean keeps searching, scrabbling his way over fallen support beams made slick and treacherous in the early morning mist, until his knuckles are scraped bloody.

“Dean.” Sam tugs at his elbow. “C'mon, Dean, we have to get to Bobby's.”

The mist leaves a sticky residue on Dean's clothes and on his car. On the radio, the meteorologists are at a loss.

*

The next day, Lucifer steps into their motel room.

There's no question of who he is. The man who strides so casually through the door is unassuming in appearance, middle-aged and paunchy and possessed of only a thin crop of graying hair, but the force of his presence buckles reality at the edges and warps the very air into a different texture, something grainy and tangy with the flavor of hell. Dean's back is still reddened and blistered from the light that had risen like a tidal wave behind him, and he gasps as Lucifer flings him against the wall and pins him there with nothing but the laziest flick of his hand. Sam makes it to his feet before he, too, is frozen, held stiffly in midair with his limbs crooked unnaturally, and a pained groan rips from his throat as Lucifer jerks him into the air. Dean's alight with terror and rage, but he can't even twitch against the crushing, effortless strength of Lucifer's grasp. He can't even speak.

He's completely powerless and desperately afraid.

Lucifer inspects Sam with catlike interest, and Dean struggles to threaten and curse him as he rubs his fingertips over Sam's face, but all that emerges are helpless, pathetic wheezes. He wants to sob with impotent fury, because this is the devil practically feeling up his brother, prodding and squeezing him like he's livestock, and Dean can't do a thing about it; his body is anchored to the wall and his voice is locked in his throat, and he can't do a single thing.

“Wait your turn, Dean,” Lucifer murmurs. A jarring buzz underscores each word, and Dean's teeth hum and the windows rattle in their frames. He can't kill this, Dean realizes, wild with panic, he can't do _anything_ against this. As if he heard the thought, Lucifer swivels to face him, Sam forgotten in an instant, such a brilliant, joyous smile on his face that Dean's heartbeat kicks up in instinctive, animal fear, his muscles seizing even though he knows he can do nothing to get away. Lucifer sidles closer, and all around Dean, the garish wallpaper cracks and begins to peel.

“Dean,” Lucifer croons. “Oh, Dean. My very favorite righteous man. Look at you. What a prize you were. So noble, so breakable, so – _human_.” He touches a finger to Dean's chest, and it feels a steel spike punching through him. Dean's eyes roll in his head and his lips part for a scream that won't come. “What do my brothers think you can do for them, hmm? What do they think you can do against _me?_ Do you have any guesses?” He leans in, his breath puffing hot and metallic against Dean's ear. “My guess is that heaven relies too much on propaganda and prophecy, and their champion is a PR stunt for the faithful blind and you're as useless a tool as the rest of them.” He brushes Dean's cheek with a finger, almost kindly, though the touch trails lines of agony across his skin. “Just a guess.” He straightens and steps away. “Let's see if I'm right. I'm so very curious if you can take me down, Dean, once you've been given the proper motivation.”

Lucifer raises his hand and burns Sam to ashes.

Dean doesn't even feel it when Lucifer disappears and the atmosphere clears and the world rights itself in his absence, or when he topples from the wall; he screams “ _Sam!_ ” and screams, and screams, as cars rumble past on the highway outside and the AC unit rattles pointlessly in the autumn cool and the breeze creaks the door shut and then open again, and he doesn't even notice as his throat goes raw – he just screams.

It's the last word Dean says for a year.

*

He spends a week driving aimlessly around the Midwest, feeling as though he's stumbling through a fog. He pulls to the side of the road and curls up in the backseat when he's tired, and wakes up painfully stiff but doesn't mind. He eats when he gets too hungry and hazy to drive, orders by pointing at the menu and doesn't spare the pretty waitresses a smile. His clothes smell of sweat and mildew and his hair is thick with grease. Dean can't bring himself to care.

His own muteness doesn't take him by surprise; he knew upon that first moment of consciousness after passing out, dragging himself numbly up from the threadbare carpet, that he couldn't speak, that even if he felt inclined, the words wouldn't form upon his tongue. It's okay so far. Dean isn't thinking about the future – he isn't thinking about much at all – and so it doesn't bother him. He gets along just fine with his mouth shut. He wraps himself in a cocoon of silence and knows it's better to stay inside.

In a dingy truckstop restroom in Illinois, Dean studies his reflection in the smudged and fractured mirror. Under the harsh fluorescent light, he looks wan and ill, face drawn and blue bruises pooling under his eyes, and his jaw is rough with stubble. He has to look away, and, wetting his hands in the cold water gushing from the faucet, he notices that the undersides of his fingernails are black with grime. _Ash_. For a moment, he's frozen, and then he yanks paper towel after paper towel from the dispenser, until it's almost empty, and soaks them and soaps them, and scrubs under his fingernails until the last dead traces of Sam have washed down the drain, until he's scraped the skin away and blood wells up over his fingernails. He leaves red smears on the sink.

He goes to a rural crossroad and stands there for hours. Nothing comes.

The reports on the news get stranger and stranger. In Wisconsin, all the children of a small town, population three thousand forty-five, disappear in the night, leaving their beds made and pictures of a smiling black-eyed face on the wall. In Oregon, another small town vanishes; the roads simply stop leading there, and phone calls go through to voicemail but no one ever picks up. All throughout the east coast, the birds stop singing. A disease in Texas wipes out a hospital. Fifteen planes fail and plummet into the ocean within an hour. Dean stops turning on the radio.

People can sense something's coming, and they start stocking up on emergency rations and guns and fall to their knees in the streets to repent. Dean _knows_ what's coming, and he doesn't see how any of that makes a difference.

It's like this that Castiel finds him.

Dean is alone in a craphole of a diner at six in the morning, gazing blankly into the dregs swirling in the thin, weak liquid in the bottom of his coffee mug, and then wingbeats strum the air and Castiel is perched on the stool next to him. He looks the same as ever, rumpled trench coat and tousled hair, tired-eyed, alive. The lone waitress, idly buffing the linoleum counter with a grubby rag while flipping through the tabloids, doesn't even look up.

“Dean,” Castiel says, quietly. “I'm so sorry.”

A week ago, his appearance at Dean's side would have been a wonderful surprise, but now Dean just clutches his cup with whitening knuckles and a slow build of anger and thinks, _Where were you? Where were you when I needed you?_

Sam died and Castiel wasn't there to stop it.

“The archangels nearly destroyed me,” Castiel says, looking at Dean with unbearable concern in his eyes. “As it was, the vessel was in tatters when I escaped. I spent time recuperating and rebuilding the body, and I had no idea whether or not you had succeeded in stopping Lucifer's rise, and – Dean, I didn't know about Sam. I should have been there. I'm-–” He stops mid-sentence, like he's aware of how inadequate _I'm sorry_ is, and bites his lip, staring down at his folded hands. He looks as guilty and unhappy as someone with Castiel's limited range of expression can look. Well, screw him.

Dean pushes his empty plate away, throws down a ten and shoves himself off his stool, but Castiel catches his arm.

“Dean,” he pleads. “Say something.”

Dean punches him in the face.

It is half an hour later that Castiel materializes in the Impala's passenger seat. He takes in the blankets and greasy fast food wrappers strewn across the backseat, the dirt in the footwell, the windshield wipers clicking rhythmically back and forth and smearing the raindrops into reddish arcs. His forehead creases in a frown, but he doesn't say anything. Instead, he settles back in his seat, wraps his trench coat around himself and puts his seatbelt on.

Dean has no idea how to make him go away short of cutting himself open, so he just drives on, hand throbbing but unbroken, on an anonymous road in the middle of nowhere, silent.

*

Castiel follows him around like a starving puppy; he's folded up in the passenger seat every night when Dean goes to sleep and is still there, unmoving and patient, when he wakes up. He trails him into diners and burger joints and orders nothing, and, after a few days, makes Dean park in front of a motel and buys them a room (one king, and the proprietor raises a shaggy eyebrow). Dean can't thank him and wouldn't if he could, but the shower feels good, and so does the softness of the bed and sheets.

He wakes up trying to scream and choking on it from a nightmare of Sam bursting into dust before his eyes, the first nightmare he's had since it happened, and Castiel is there to press two fingers to his forehead to soothe him into dreamless sleep.

Mostly, they pass the time in quiet, but every so often Castiel talks a little. He tells him that the archangels killed Jimmy's body before he could patch it up and his soul is gone, that Lucifer has hidden himself and Castiel isn't sure how to smoke him out. In the car, Castiel turns on the radio; the announcer is talking about the rash of infants born with bizarre deformities in the southern states and parts of Mexico. Their eyelids are fused to their eyeballs, their hands have no fingers and their feet no toes, and between their legs, there's only smoothness. The announcer's voice blares against the whispering background of static. Dean swallows and turns it back off.

“Lucifer is only toying with us,” Castiel says. “He's capable of so much more than this. He's drawing it out.” He looks out the window, at the barren fields streaking by under a featureless white sky. “He's having fun.”

Dean remembers what Lucifer said to him, _I'm so very curious if you can take me down_ , and blinks his eyes against the sudden blur of tears.

The world isn't panicking as much as it should, but even so, there are differences, people rushing about looking haunted and scared, the straggling groups of zealots taken to the street corners with signs, businesses here and there closing up. They pass two abandoned diners before they find one open, and once inside, they settle down at a booth and Dean indicates coffee and a cheeseburger on the menu. He isn't feeling particularly hungry, but Castiel has reminded him, gently but firmly, that he should eat regularly, and Dean thinks the idea of choking down a burger is more appetizing than trying to argue without a voice.

Castiel observes him pick at his fries with what passes as worry on his face. Dean ignores it.

“I can no longer hear my brothers' voices,” Castiel says abruptly.

Dean glances up at him from his methodical removal of the sesame seeds from the hamburger bun.

“In heaven, the presence of other angels is palpable,” he says, staring resolutely not at Dean, but at the scarred formica tabletop. “Even stationed on earth, I could always feel them, or open myself to revelation and receive their messages.” He picks up his napkin and distractedly starts unfolding and refolding it with short, deft movements. “And Jimmy was always there, in the body with me, though he was almost never aware. Now he's dead, and I've hidden myself from my brothers.”

Dean watches him fiddle with the napkin. He doesn't seem inclined to say more, and Dean eats half his burger before Castiel murmurs, “I've never been alone before.”

He looks dejected, so Dean, on impulse, raises his hand and signals the waitress for more coffee. When it comes, he adds a little cream and sugar and pushes it across the table to Castiel. He finds himself smiling a little at the expression on Castiel's face when he takes his first sip and tastes the bitterness of it, and Castiel looks up and smiles back.

*

They don't hunt. Dean skips from seedy motel to seedy motel and Castiel tags along, a constant presence, making his home the passenger seat or the armchair by the door. He supposes that Castiel has nowhere else to go, and that's fine. Dean can't say anything to him and doesn't want to anyway, but he finds he's beginning to like the company.

He misses Sam every day, with a volcanic pressure he keeps clamped in his gut and the back of his head. Sometimes he can't help himself and sobs soundlessly, and when he does, Castiel strokes his back and hums soft little lullabies under his breath.

In the middle of October, forest fires destroy most of southern California.

*

Castiel tells him that heaven will be looking for them, that he has a price on his head and that they'll want to take Dean and squirrel him away until they're ready to bring him out and throw him at Lucifer. He says hex bags and his own efforts at concealing Dean's presence will only work for so long, and this is how Dean ends up shirtless in a bathroom with Castiel dabbing consecrated oil onto his fingertips from a small vial.

“This ward will protect you from angelic search methods,” Castiel states from behind him, catching Dean's eyes in the mirror. “It's very old, very powerful and very effective. It will guard you even from the highest of angels' roaming eyes.”

It isn't warm in the bathroom, and the only light is the flickering bulb above the mirror, buzzing as a fly taps stubbornly against it. His reflection in the mirror is sallow and shadowed, Castiel a pale-faced specter drifting over his shoulder, and he feels vulnerable and cold and yet, for all of that, strangely secure, in an anonymous motel room with an angel and the old magic he's using against his own kind. Dean shivers and turns his face away from the mirror.

“Once I complete the ritual, it's important that we don't get separated. The ward will make it just as hard for me to find you as it will Zachariah and Lucifer.” Castiel touches his arm for a moment, reassuring, leaving a blotch of oil. “I won't lose track of you.”

Castiel anoints his forehead, his eyelids, and his lips. The oil tastes bitter and acrid, but Dean doesn't lick it off or spit it out. He keeps his eyes closed, feeling Castiel touch oil to the hollow of his throat, his breastbone, his navel, both his nipples. He draws symbols over his muscles, then slips to the other side of his body and repeats the pattern on his back. The oil is warmer than it should be, and the symbol Castiel is mapping out on his skin is like fire brought a little too close.

Castiel smears oil once more across Dean's forehead. “Benedicat te Deus,” he murmurs, and the heat flares on Dean's skin and then fades completely. He glances around; he doesn't feel particularly different or hidden. But Castiel's expression is satisfied as he studies him, and that will have to do.

The oil comes off easily when Castiel wipes him down with a washcloth, but the biting flavor of it lingers in his mouth long afterward.

*

The night before, Dean had run himself too far, ignored the limits of his own exhaustion, and found himself nodding off behind the wheel thirty miles out into the middle of nowhere, Idaho. The morning finds him curled into a cramped ball in the backseat, blinking and peering around blearily, his phone buzzing insistently in his pocket. He doesn't even bother to check the number; it'll be the hundredth time Bobby has called. It occurs to him to wonder why he keeps the stupid goddamn thing anyway, and that it would be an excellent idea to crawl out of the Impala and throw it into the woods, but just as he pushes himself up and gets the cell out of his pocket, Castiel holds his hand out unexpectedly.

Dean hesitates, then gives him the phone. Castiel flips it open.

“Hello,” he says, and pauses. “No, it isn't Dean. I am Castiel. We met briefly.” Castiel's brow furrows. “Yes, I recall that happening. I – oh. I apologize.”

Dean snorts to himself and settles himself back down in the backseat.

“Dean is with me, and he's alive and unharmed,” Castiel continues, still twisted around in his seat and watching Dean unblinkingly. “No, he hasn't been answering his phone. That's why I am instead. There are certain things you need to be informed of, and Dean can't do it himself.”

Suddenly, Dean doesn't want to listen in anymore. He sits up in a rush, but Castiel shakes his head at him and slips out of the car before he can do anything. Dean watches him walk until he's at the side of the road, out of earshot, lips moving as he explains everything to Bobby: Lucifer has risen. Dean is mute. Sam is dead.

When Castiel returns to the car, he hands the phone back to Dean and says, “Keep that. You may yet find a use for it someday.”

Dean doubts it, but he returns it to his pocket anyway.

“Bobby said to tell you he understands,” Castiel says, later, once they've hit town and Dean is filling up on gas. “And that he's sorry, and not to do anything stupid.”

Dean hooks the nozzle back in place and turns to Castiel with a little shrug. The angel's expression is unreadable.

“I'm not going to let you do anything stupid,” he says with finality, and when they hit the road, he turns the radio to a classic rock station. At least the apocalypse hasn't changed Metallica.

*

A month after Sam dies, Dean wakes from a fitful sleep and Castiel isn't there.

He can't call for him, but he raps soundly on the table, and then the door to the bathroom, and when there's no response, he pokes his head inside and finds it empty. He checks behind the shower curtain just in case and, feeling a little foolish, in the closet, but finds only a few stray hangers and a pair of worn-out sneakers someone left behind. None of the angel-be-gone sigils have been triggered, the salt lines aren't broken, there are no signs of a struggle or traces of blood. Castiel has simply disappeared.

Dean forces back his rising panic and hunts around in the bedside table for a pen and a notepad, upon which he scribbles _have you seen the guy I came in with?_ Outside, the Impala is untouched, no angel sitting inside, and when he shows the note to the fellow at the desk, he only gives Dean a weird look and shakes his head. Dean stands there for a moment, lost, breath puffing out in wispy white clouds, before he goes back to the Impala, gleaming black in the pale light that filters diffuse from the flat overcast sky, and opens the door to the backseat to toss aside the blankets there. Nothing.

He lets himself back into his room, hand trembling around the keys, and Castiel is standing there like he'd never left, unruffled and calm.

Anna is sitting on the bed. She has a sword in her hand.

Dean glances uncertainly between her and Castiel, flickering between anger and trepidation; he hasn't seen Anna since Castiel got yanked up to heaven, and something seems subtly off about her, the way she won't quite look at anyone else in the room and clutches her strange-looking sword at her side. Mute and still shivering from the chill air outside, Dean has no idea what to do.

“I'm sorry I was gone, Dean,” Castiel says. “I heard Anna calling for me and I didn't have time to wake you.”

Dean fumbles for the notepad again. _What happened?_ he writes.

Castiel takes in this new attempt at communication with no visible surprise. “Anna...” There's something like guilt on his face as he gazes at her. “Anna was captured and brought back to heaven for reeducation. Like I was.” He looks down at the carpet. “It was my fault.”

“It's in the past,” Anna murmurs, also to the carpet, but her voice is bitter, and Castiel ducks his head, miserable. She finally meets Dean's eyes. “It would have taken more than that to break me. Zachariah's always been smug and overconfident, and a little crying and begging for forgiveness and he decided I was ready to be field-tested. Fool.” She holds out the blade. “And he really should have asked me what I'd done with this.”

“It's Lucifer's sword,” Castiel says.

Anna smiles a sharp, sharp smile. “Remember when you asked me if there were weapons that could kill an angel?”

Dean feels nothing when he realizes revenge is within his grasp. Sam's death is too vast, too apocalyptic, too gaping a hole to fill with any murder, but he sees the vicious joy on Anna's face and the determination on Castiel's, and he knows that this is his job. This is his mess, and he's the one who has to clean it up. They have a weapon now. The next time Lucifer comes knocking, they can fight him. They have a chance.

The hunt is on.

*

Anna pops in and out. She's different than she was as a human, and has to be different, Dean supposes, than she was as an angel before she got the Bible camp brainwashing treatment that had turned Castiel, briefly, into such a dick. There's a part of him that wants to get back what they had before she stole her grace from Uriel's neck, that easy understanding and connection, but that Anna was swallowed up in heaven's holy fire, and maybe that Dean fell to dust along with Sam. It's simpler to just be soldiers together.

She's on Lucifer's trail for them, keeping a channel in her head open for Castiel so that she can always find her way back, and every time she appears – in the backseat of the car, in the motel, and a few times, alarmingly, in the men's bathroom – she has updates on the devil's whereabouts, his activities, the demon hordes he's been amassing, and she and Castiel confer about how their former superiors are likely to react and where the garrisons will be deployed and how all of this should inform their movements. Dean lies back on his pillow and pretends the weblike yellow waterstains on the ceiling are constellations, until he thinks about how Cas and Anna look at the sky, and wonders where Sam is now, and he decides the ceiling is better off patterned with simple stains instead.

As much as Anna comes and goes, Castiel, the angel who apparently got stuck with babysitting duty, is always around.

Lucifer's sword never leaves the leather sheath Anna wears across her back. Dean asks Castiel about it one day, sliding across the table a note written on a pad of paper he stole from the latest motel: _Why not give me the sword?_ Castiel reads it and shrugs.

“No human could wield that weapon, Dean. It was crafted for Lucifer himself.”

That news provokes a shameful little burst of relief. Lucifer's death is no longer his responsibility.

The city of Denver is leveled. Anna, bloody and with the dust of wrecked buildings graying her hair, says it was a critical victory for Lucifer and he took out half a garrison along with it. A week later, Albuquerque is blasted into soot. That one, Anna tells him, was a holy purging, and heaven counted it as a battle well won. That night, Dean dreams of Sam's ashes burrowing underneath his fingernails, and in the darkness, Castiel sits at his bedside and clasps his hands securely with both his own while his breathing calms. Unreasonable and fragile with grief, Dean tugs him down into the bed, pushes his head into his chest and falls asleep against his solid warmth that feels very deceptively human.

Castiel begins to be able to tell what on a menu Dean will like, and falls into the habit of ordering for him so Dean doesn't have to deal with the awkwardness of pointing. It doesn't seem like he can read Dean's mind, but he understands him just fine anyway, and that's part of what Dean likes about being with Castiel. Dean can't speak, but with Cas, he doesn't need to.

*

They follow Lucifer to a convent in Oklahoma. When they arrive, they find all the nuns stripped naked and piled in a heap in the sparse, weedy garden. Their skin is melting.

“Fucker,” Anna snaps, fingers tightening around the hilt of the sword. Dean, embarrassed at his weakness but reminded too strongly of hell, has to turn away. The frozen soil crunches under his boots as he paces, focusing on the billowing clouds his breath forms in the snappingly cold air.

“I don't understand how our brother came to this,” Castiel says helplessly, staring at the gruesome tumble of oozing limbs and gooey pools of skin. “This serves no purpose. There can be no pretense of righteousness or even strategic import. It's wanton. It's _cruel_.”

“He's not our brother anymore.” Anna sighs and tucks her frayed red hair behind her ear, businesslike, attention already back on the hunt. “I'll see if I can figure out where he went from here.” She disappears with a soft rustle of feathers. Left alone, Castiel places his hand on Dean's shoulder and squeezes, a quick flash of body heat laden with reassurance. Dean shivers and rubs his hands together.

The kitchens open into the garden, and the door is standing wide, jammed open by a corpse's spreadeagled arm. Dean swallows his nausea and ventures inside, finding it a smashed ruin; the floor is littered with pots, the refrigerators are opened and spilling their contents like intestines on the linoleum, and the tables are overturned. The air is rank with sulfur. He doesn't have to explore to know the rest of the building will look exactly the same, another pointless desecration in Lucifer's joyride massacre across the country, and he turns to leave.

The door is shut.

Dean whirls around and comes face-to-face with Zachariah.

“Dean!” Zachariah claps a hand on his shoulder, friendly and enthusiastic as he was as Mr. Adler, loyal Sandover man. Dean snatches a pan from the countertop and swings it at Zachariah's head, but it flies out of his grip and clatters against the fridge. “Well, it's good to see you're as brash and feisty as ever, Dean,” Zachariah tuts, “even if you've been having... voice problems, or so we've been told.” He grins his salesman's grin. “You've been doing a fantastic job of not killing Lucifer too soon. Just like we'd hoped. Who knew incompetence could be such a blessing?”

Dean wants to tell him where to go shove it, but he can only stare warily, as trapped and useless as a caged animal. He remembers how the hair on the back of his neck had stood up, adrenaline uncoiling in response to some instinctive acknowledgment of _threat_ , when Castiel had leaned into his space and said _I can throw you back in_ , and he knows that Zachariah is much, much more powerful than Castiel, that he could throw Dean into hell and then send Castiel, wingless, falling after.

“What?” Zachariah asks, cruelly, after a long stretch of furious silence. He taps Dean's chest condescendingly. “Cat got your tongue?”

Dean swipes at him, and Zachariah dodges easily, laughing.

“Look, Dean, I'll make it real simple,” he says, the cheap smile falling off his face. “We want one thing from you, and you know what it is. You're going to let Lucifer cleanse the world, and then you're going to kill him, and we will usher in a new reign of heaven on earth. And if you get any bright ideas–” he flicks Dean's forehead, hard “–like finding a way to bump off Lucifer too early and letting this writhing, seething, rutting, fetid mass you call humanity live on – we won't let Sam into heaven.”

Dean's breath catches in his throat.

“Oh yes,” Zachariah affirms, “he didn't go to hell. We've got him. Or, more precisely, we've got him in limbo. It's not as bad as hell, of course, but after an eternity waiting, all alone, knowing he's so close to the good stuff and unable to get in? It'll probably start to seem like it. And, hey, maybe if we get bored enough of having him there, having to account for him on the paperwork every time taxes come due, we will end up casting him down into the pit. How long do you think it would take him to break, Dean? I bet you a hundred dollars he wouldn't last as long as you did.”

Unable to do anything else, Dean flips him the bird.

“Hey, hey,” Zachariah chuckles, “manners!” He steps back, out of Dean's reach, and Dean finds himself relaxing automatically. “I think you got the message, so I'll be off. I have business to attend to. Oh, don't bother saying goodbye. I know you'll miss me.”

The moment Zachariah disappears, the door rockets inward and crashes into the far wall. Castiel strides in, crackling with fury, rain whipping after him on a frenzied wind, and Dean slumps against the counter, suddenly drained. The weather dies down as Castiel hurries to him, checking him over almost anxiously. Dean tilts his head back and stares at the ceiling, blank.

“The wards on you,” Castiel mutters, voice harsh with anger. “They've been weakened. I haven't been keeping up their maintenance as thoroughly as I should. The fact that they're there, even depleted, is the only reason he couldn't bring you back to the green room, but it's my fault he could find you at all. Dean, I'm so sorry.”

Not wanting to hear it anymore, Dean brushes his hands away. He walks to the Impala and shuts himself into the driver's seat, where he just sits, gripping the chill steering wheel, and the leather creaks as Castiel appears beside him. For a few minutes, there is only silence.

“I could hear what Zachariah was saying, even if I couldn't reach you,” Castiel says eventually. “And Dean, you should know that while I have no particular knowledge of the admittance process that brings souls into heaven, I've never heard of a human soul being held in limbo before. You should also know that the reapers are not and have never been under our jurisdiction. It's very possible Zachariah was bluffing.”

Dean shakes his head wearily and starts the car, but he lets the idea percolate. Lying sleepless in bed that night, Castiel sleepless too and watchful by the door, he turns it over in his head. If Zachariah is telling the truth, there's no way Dean can sacrifice Sam's eternity in heaven, no way. Not for anything. But if Castiel's guess is correct, and Zachariah's lying through his glib teeth as usual, then Lucifer should be put down, for what he's doing to the world, for what he did to Sam. Eventually, he decides he doesn't know what to think, so he'll go along with what the angels tell him, and Castiel and Anna say Lucifer needs to die. He rolls over onto his side and falls into restless slumber. 

* 

Anna's checking out Houston and the two of them are in San Francisco following a lead when Lucifer and his demons set the city on fire.

The air is filled with heat, smoke, grit and the screams of the dying and the terrified; people stumbling past are little more than dark shapes in the yellow haze that burns Dean's lungs and obscures his vision. Castiel had said something about Lucifer laying down a dampening effect on the city, and he didn't catch the details but he knows it means they have to walk out of here, no magic trips on Angel Air and no Impala, not with the streets mired with obstacles. He keeps his eyes on the tan coat swishing purposefully ahead of him, cutting a path around hissing electrical wires and fallen telephone poles and overturned cars blaring alarms into the chaos, and tries his hardest to ignore the ubiquitous screaming and the still, crumpled forms all around him.

Behind him, an apartment building groans its final protest, creaks mightily, and collapses into the street with an earth-shaking crash, sending up dust and debris that hits Dean like the sudden blast of a desert sandstorm. Coughing, eyes stinging, he shields his head with his arms and hurries after Cas.

Out of nowhere, something snags his foot, and Dean trips, going down hard on the road and scraping the skin from his palms and knees. He twists around to see what snared him and his lips form the shape of a curse; a tarp has fluttered loose from something, and his ankle is wrapped up in the plastic and ropes. He takes out his knife and cuts the rope away, untangles the rest, and when he finally gets to his feet, Castiel is gone.

Dean looks around desperately. He's at an intersection and Castiel could have gone any way, and Dean can't see for more than twelve feet at best – the angel is gone, Dean is lost and he has no idea where to go. He pivots, but it's no use, and stationary in the middle of the road is no place to be. He has to get moving, but then he'll lose him. _Castiel_ , he tries to shout, but no sound comes out.

“Are you lost?” someone asks, and Dean spins around to find a man lounging nonchalantly on the sidewalk, as though there are no flames flickering in the windows of the building behind him nor sirens wailing in the distance. His eyes flip black. “Hi, Dean.”

Dean pulls out Ruby's old knife. The demon grins and steps forward, and another one fades in from the smog, and another, and another, and the four of them form a semicircle bearing steadily down on Dean. If he'd had his voice, Dean might have quipped _these odds suck, you should've brought more_ , but instead he just tightens his grip and lunges. The demon he aimed for ducks aside and swings its fist into his chest; recovering fast, Dean stabs out again, and this time he catches one of them in the side. The demon hisses in pain and kicks him in the face. Next thing he knows Dean is flat on his back, blinking dazedly up at a sputtering streetlamp overhead. Then a hand forces its way into his hair, lifts his head up and slams it into the asphalt, and Dean's breath is forced from him in a rush as the demon straddles him.

“This was way too easy for someone as famous as you,” the demon remarks, twirling Ruby's knife in its fingers. “I think I'm actually disappointed.”

He cuts a line down Dean's arms to hollers and jeers from the three demons watching. Dean shudders and jerks under him.

“Aw, no screams? Guess I'll have to try harder.” The next slice twists from Dean's collarbone almost to his hip. His vision whites out momentarily, but he spent forty years under Alastair; if this demon wants any kind of reaction, he'll have to try a whole lot harder than that.

The knife tip scrapes its way along his chest, ripping his shirt apart, and the demon whistles appreciatively when it finds his anti-possession tattoo. “Look at that. I think I'll cut that open and let myself in, ride your meatsuit for a while while you scream away in the back of your own head. You've never been possessed, right? I promise I'll make it a party. I'll find you some virgins to fuck. How does that sound, Dean?” He slaps his cheek. “You and I are going to be the best of—”

The demon cuts off with a yelp as Castiel lifts him off Dean with one hand and burns him out of the body with the other. He drops the empty meatsuit beside Dean and stalks toward the other demons. Dean sees one of them bolt, but the other two are stupid enough to try and face Castiel down, and he watches with dim satisfaction as Castiel presses his palms to their foreheads and white light beams from their eyes. He lets his head drop back onto the pavement in exhaustion.

“Dean, Dean.” Castiel is at his side, hands flat on his shoulders. “Dean, we have to get out of here. It's not much farther, I promise. Please stand up.”

Dean grabs Ruby's knife from where the demon dropped it and gets to his feet with only a little difficulty, but the long wound on his side makes walking torture, and he hisses in a breath and doubles over. Castiel forcibly straightens out his spine and ducks under one of Dean's arms, taking most of his weight onto his shoulders. “Walk with me,” he says urgently. “Please.”

It's only another fifteen minutes of staggering before they make it out of the circle of Lucifer's influence, and Castiel immediately transports them to the top of a hill across the bay. The Golden Gate Bridge is a twisted red ruin in the water, and beyond it, the city is being eaten by flames. It seems like the heat should be roasting on Dean's face, even at this distance, like it was in hell, but it's cool and dark and peaceful atop the hill, and a light drizzle is washing away the dust coated all over Dean's body.

He remembers unhappily that his stupid fucking car is in there, and lets himself pass out on the slick grass.

*

When Dean wakes up, he's laid out carefully in the bedroom of what appears to be an actual house, most likely a home quickly abandoned in the face of the attack that destroyed San Francisco. The door to the attached bathroom is ajar, and he can see the medicine cabinet behind the mirror swung wide open and empty. Somewhere outside the room, Castiel is banging around looking for something – probably, Dean reflects, registering the pain in his arm and side, a first aid kit. He raises his head a little off the pillow and, yes, blood is dying his shirt a watery red.

The room is bathed in the warm golden glow of the single bedside lamp, and Dean contents himself just looking around, at the curtains drawn safely against the night, the polished oaken dresser, the clothes scattered haphazardly across the carpet, spilled in their owners' hasty packing, all drawn soft-edged and gentle in the muted lamplight. It's almost calm, here. Almost peaceful. Dean relaxes into the comforter with a deep sigh, and Castiel paces in, empty-handed and frowning.

“Pancake mix,” he complains, giving up his search and seating himself beside Dean on the bed. “There is pancake mix available in their cupboards, but no antiseptics or bandages.”

Dean shrugs as much as he can, which isn't a lot. He grits his teeth in pain.

Castiel purses his lips thoughtfully as he studies him. “I have an alternative treatment,” he says, and gestures to Dean's torso. “May I–”

Dean nods his consent without hesitation, having no idea what the angel is going to do but hoping, in a distant way, that it doesn't involve exploding lightbulbs. He doesn't flinch when Castiel leans over him, grips his collar and rips his shirt open like it's tissue paper. He examines the cuts with a detached, medical curiosity, but when he places the tip of his finger against the tender flesh above the wound, Dean can feel the tremors in his hand.

“Your brother loved you very much,” Castiel says, and Dean startles, but Castiel's other hand is closed tight around his own and there is nowhere to go. He forces himself to relax. “In the hospital, after your confrontation with Alastair, Sam came to me and demanded the miracle of your healing. I said no. I'm not sure if he told you that.”

He didn't. Dean has to close his eyes and turn his face into the pillow to suppress the tears and the thought of all the things Sam might have told him that Dean would never know.

“I think he believed I refused him because I was incapable.” Castiel presses his finger hard into Dean's broken skin, and what should be pain instead feels like a gentle warm tingling inside his flesh, like a hundred gentle sparks of electricity, and Dean watches in amazement as Castiel trails his fingertip slowly down the ribbon of gaping skin and it seals like a zipper, smooth and perfectly unblemished, behind him. “I'm not.”

Castiel progresses with painstaking care, centimeter by centimeter, down the gash, and the wound and blood and pain vanish in his wake. The tingling of the healing is unlike anything Dean's ever known, and it's odd, but it's not unpleasant. He realizes belatedly that his mouth is open and he's panting softly, but he can't quite wrest himself under control.

“My entire garrison went into hell to retrieve you, but it was I alone who was chosen to hold you and carry you aloft. This decision was made for many reasons, but one of them was their trust that I could rebuild your body as it had been, as it was meant to be. And I did, Dean. I made this vessel for you with my hands.”

Dean looks at Castiel helplessly, transfixed, wishing he could beg him to stop talking or say _this is way beyond chick-flick moments, dude,_ but Castiel's voice is a ceaseless low murmur, like an old, old stream in the deepest of woods. “I held you in my arms and brought you up from death,” he tells him. “Your body was a ragged tapestry, riddled with holes and rotted threads and bleached of color. I wove the very fabric of your flesh back to wholeness and health, I threaded it with nerves and veins and hair. I painted life into your blood. I stitched you together atom by atom, Dean, and then I wrapped your soul inside.” He smiles slightly. The knife wound is gone. “It's foolishness to think that I couldn't have healed a few bruises, not when every cell in your being bears my fingerprints. Still, I wasn't given permission to perform the miracle. These things can be... taxing.”

That's when Dean notices the tired slump of Castiel's shoulders, the strain in his eyes. His exhaustion is already apparent, but it's equally apparent that he has no intention of stopping. He says, “Of course, I don't need to ask permission now,” and reaches for the cut in his arm, but Dean catches his wrist. And pulls him into a kiss.

It wasn't planned, Dean hadn't even thought of it, but he feels something hard and knotted in his chest give way as he draws Castiel's tongue into his mouth, as he slides his hands under his shirt and against skin that's as smooth and supple as his own chest is now. Castiel kisses with tentative clumsiness, but he's kissing Dean back and his palms feel soft and human when he puts them to the side of Dean's face, and it's almost like discovering sex all over again, like those enthusiastic, shameless, inexpert fumblings on autumn afternoons when they'd both skipped school and her parents were at work. The desire that sweeps through Dean is clean and uncomplicated, with Castiel stroking his fingers through his hair and pressing his lips to his cheekbone and the curve of his ear. His arm hurts, but not enough to get in the way.

Dean doesn't want to ask any questions about what this means. He just wants, so he yanks Castiel's trench coat and jacket and shirt and tie off and tosses them to the floor, pushes his dress slacks down his hips and tastes the milky skin revealed there, noting with amusement the goosebumps that pebble up under his tongue; the angel isn't so immune to feeling after all. He goes exploring, nipping at the bend of Castiel's knee, tugging his nipple between his teeth, sucking his fingers into his mouth, and the whole time Castiel just touches him everywhere he can reach, artless and gasping, just as Dean wishes, because it's his turn to be overwhelmed.

“Dean,” Castiel moans as he bites at his neck. “Oh, Dean, I want–”

Everything about Castiel's body, the body that used to belong to an office man from Pontiac, is bigger and harder and sharper than any of the girls Dean has picked up. The most experience he's ever had handling a dick is with his own, but when he licks a swath of saliva up his palm and starts to jerk Castiel roughly, it hardly seems to matter, because he tosses his head back and comes for the very first time with a sharp cry and his face so open it's like the whole world has been swept away. Dean presses a kiss to his forehead as Castiel's breathing stabilizes, and then he's the one who loses his breath as Castiel flips him over effortlessly and takes him into his mouth.

He orgasms too soon, with stuttering, voiceless gasps.

When Dean wakes up in the morning, he's surprised to see Castiel asleep beside him, sprawled on his back like a cat anticipating a bellyrub and only covered with the barest scrap of sheet. One of his feet is dangling off the end of the bed. Dean snorts softly and shakes his head, but nevertheless takes care to be quiet as he pads into the kitchen to search for food. There's nothing easily microwaveable in their freezer, but the pancake mix is out on the counter.

In the fridge, there are eggs and milk, not yet expired, and, feeling ridiculous, he finds sugar, baking powder and vanilla in the cupboards. Dean thinks about Castiel's first orgasm, his first night sleeping, and that pretty soon he'll wake up and he might be hungry for the first time as well.

Within half an hour, a fully clothed Castiel wanders into the kitchen to a plate of warm pancakes. Dean pushes them toward him gruffly and then proceeds determinedly to ignore him, but he doesn't miss the pleased smile that flickers about Castiel's face.

“Thank you,” he says. Dean doesn't look up, but when Castiel reaches across the table and rests his hand lightly atop Dean's own, he doesn't pull away.

Anna shows up just in time to snag the last pancake. “I found a lead in Houston,” she says, pouring what is almost a lake of maple syrup onto her plate. “We'll go there as soon as you're ready, Dean. It'll be faster getting around now that your car is gone.”

Dean glances away, stung. _Shower_ , he scribbles on his notepad, and gets up from the table, ignoring Castiel's worried gaze. He stands under the hot water until he no longer feels like breaking something, because the Impala was the last link to his brother, it was the home he shared with Sam, goddammit, _God fucking damn it_ , then puts his torn, bloody and begrimed clothes back on because he has nothing else, and meanders into the bedroom. The bed is still unmade, the covers twisted into a hopeless knot between the footboard and the mattress. Nothing seems different between him and Cas yet. Maybe Dean didn't screw it up after all.

Peering between the lacy white curtains, he sees the angels, sitting on top of a white van in the driveway, nestled side by side. Anna has her head on Castiel's shoulder and his hand in hers; the sprinkling rain has plastered their hair to their scalps in bedraggled wet strands, but neither seem to mind. They're probably engaging in some of their ridiculous angel chatter, Dean muses, remembering some of Castiel's mysticisms and cryptic talk, and the anger he was feeling slowly seeps away.

*

No one mentions it, but that night, Anna disappears after helping them ward the motel room, and Castiel bears Dean down into the bed and kisses a trail down his chest.

The weirdest thing about it (and that's weird enough in it itself) is that Castiel decides that, if he's going to be sleeping, he needs pajamas. He doesn't ask for any for himself, but after they appropriate new clothes for Dean, just enough to keep underneath the weapons in the dufflebag he takes everywhere, Castiel chooses a T-shirt and boxers from among them and takes to wearing them to bed every night. Dean likes the look of the simple attire on him, likes it even better because it's his. Not that he'd ever admit that aloud, even if he could.

*

In Minneapolis, their latest lead falls flat when the vampire they were interrogating dies in his chair. It was a lucky break in the first place that they realized his clan was often in the areas Lucifer hit _before_ Lucifer hit them, weeks of work to track them down, and another week of careful baiting to get the leader to come out from inside their angel-proofed den. All of that, all of the bad memories that rose like bile in Dean's head as he stood outside and listened to the vampire screaming under the ministrations of the angels, and the thing was dead before it could tell them anything at all.

“This doesn't make sense,” Castiel says as he pulls Dean inside the warehouse. The vampire's chair has been kicked over, and the shredded corpse sags grotesquely against the floor. Dean avoids looking at it. “What we did shouldn't have killed him. His head is intact.”

“It doesn't matter how it happened,” Anna responds curtly, packing away the vials of dead man's blood. “He's dead. If we leave now, we might be able to abduct another vampire from the same clan and see what they know. This one has only been gone a few hours, so they may not have fled yet. We can—”

It's subtle, much more subtle than the last time Dean felt it; there's nothing of that force of presence that bows the air into a convex, but there's a sudden sense of wrongness that itches at his fingertips and the back of his neck, and he _knows_. He knows while Castiel and Anna seem to feel nothing, and he can't shout a warning so he reaches urgently for Castiel's sleeve –

It's too late. Lucifer steps into the warehouse out of nowhere, and in a simple, graceful movement, draws his sword from the sheath strapped to Anna's back and impales her through the throat.

Her body convulses and falls to the floor, bright white light welling up out of her eyes and mouth, and just as it blows outward in a blinding eruption, Dean finds himself in a parking lot clutching onto Cas, heart thudding in a frenzy in his ears and adrenaline lacing his blood with terror. Castiel's eyes meet his, wide and aghast in the murky yellow glare of the streetlights. For once, he's as stricken for speech as Dean.

*

At three in the morning, Dean gets up to pee and the bed is empty. It's easy enough to guess where he'll be, and Dean finds him sitting on the withered lawn with his knees drawn up to his chest and his head canted back, gazing at the sky. The house Castiel chose for them is out in what used to be farm country before a plague swept through, killing thousands and scaring off the rest before fizzling into a weak cold as soon as it hit the county border. There's nothing around but endless fields of hard, icy dirt where once rolled golden seas of wheat. The clouds are featureless and uniform overhead, but Dean knows that beyond them, the stars are blazing with a cold, proud, unseen clarity.

“I don't know where angels go when they die,” Castiel says when Dean sits down beside him. “We don't have souls that live on, like humans do. The closest equivalent an angel has is its grace, and that immolates upon death.”

He's silent for a while. The hushed chill of the night air cuts through Dean's clothes, and he put on a jacket and jeans to come out here; Castiel is wearing nothing but his thin cotton shirt and boxers, and he's not even shivering. Dean pulls him closer anyway.

“It's conventional wisdom among angels that our dead brethren are gathered to our Father,” Castiel continues at last. “I'm... I don't know if I believe that anymore. And Anna was fallen. She disobeyed. If there is a place for angels after death, I don't know if she'll be there. I don't know if she still exists anywhere.”

Dean kisses Castiel's shoulder. Castiel sighs and tears his gaze away from the empty sky, resting his forehead briefly against Dean's.

“I have lost the last of my brothers who stood by me,” Castiel states, like it's not a plea for pity or comfort but a fact, a truth of their existence that binds them together. “You're all I have left.”

He understands. Castiel is all that Dean has left too.

*

Without the sword, they're lost.

“There must be other weapons outside of heaven's arsenal that can kill Lucifer,” Castiel says, and they spend hours in libraries, some scorched and cluttered with toppled shelves and defaced with graffiti painted in arterial spray, some the private collections of other hunters. They research physical weapons, spells, traps, anything Castiel can think of, but time and time again, there's nothing. Dean stops himself from wishing Sam was there to help look, because nobody was as good at wresting information out of ancient texts as Sam was, nobody, but that thought leads to nowhere Dean wants to go.

Lucifer's destruction rages on. New York sinks into the ocean, and then tsunamis wash away the entire southern coastline. His war long ago spread beyond the borders of the States, but within it, a new city burns every day, under Lucifer's mad fire or the purifying wrath of angels. Without any hope of a way to defeat him, life becomes a constant dash away from battlefronts, overnighting in abandoned houses (more and more frequently already in use by other squatters as well) or the wrecked office buildings of gutted cities. Even with his ruffled hair and worn trench coat, Castiel is palpably inhuman, and Dean never speaks; together, they aren't the most innocuous of pairs, and sweet talk isn't within either of their capabilities. They tend to stay away from any refugees they happen across, and the refugees stay away from them.

“Worldwide terrorist attacks by an extremely powerful organization,” buzzes the radio on whatever channels are still functional. Or, “Judgment Day is finally come. Repent, sinners, before it is too late,” or endless government announcements about troop deployments, rescue efforts and supply chains. It's all useless. No one can stop Lucifer, and those unlucky enough to survive will be faced with hell on earth.

A part of Dean is glad for it. It means Zachariah's getting what he wants, and if he's telling the truth, then Sam will go to heaven.

*

_I could sign up with Zachariah_ , Dean writes.

Castiel shakes his head sharply. “All hope is not lost, Dean,” he says. Later that night, Dean traces _how do you know_ on his naked skin with the blunt edge of his fingernail, and Castiel catches his hand.

“I know,” he says simply, “because I still have faith in you.”

*

On a bare, stained mattress in a stripped apartment, Castiel pushes inside Dean and stops there, trembling, until Dean licks away the sweat beading on his forehead and presses encouraging kisses to his eyelids. He gathers himself and thrusts steadily into him, with a slow and implacable rhythm, one hand between them and jacking Dean in perfect time. His face is serene in dim blue light of the dusk reflecting inside, composed and otherworldly until it breaks apart with pleasure. He drops his forehead to Dean's chest, panting, and Dean rubs at his shoulders, calming him, reassuring him.

“ _Dean_ ,” he groans when he comes, shuddering, and Dean follows a minute later, his release marked only by his gasping breaths.

Castiel digs a washcloth out of Dean's duffel, wets it with water from a bottle and wipes them both down, cleaning the sweat and semen from Dean's skin with tender, almost reverent touches. Dean puts his fingers in Castiel's damp hair and slides them down over his cheekbones, the concavities of his cheeks. Castiel tucks his chin over Dean's shoulder and drags the blanket over them both.

When Dean's moments away from falling asleep, he hears Castiel say, quietly and sadly, into the darkness, “I wish I could hear you speak.”

*

There's a certain peace to be had at the end of the world. Humanity is crumbling around Dean's ears, scrabbling and screaming, and Lucifer walks the earth, knocking mountains into the sea and whipping tornadoes across what land the waves couldn't reach. He's unstoppable, unfathomable, a sun made wild and free. He is God, and he is wrathful.

Dean is only flesh, and he knows there's nothing he can do. There's nothing anyone can do. In this, he finally finds rest. At the end of all days, at the close of all stories, Dean feels the weight of all his worries and responsibilities disappearing from his shoulders. In the moments before humanity slips over the event horizon, in that inevitable slide to nothingness, there is only quiet. Dean has been a passenger in his own life since the moment Sam died, without energy or motivation, without passion for his purpose and then without any purpose at all, without a voice or anything to say with it. He accepts that now. He sets himself adrift from his destiny.

Dean stands before a mirror in what was once the penthouse suite of a beautiful hotel. The glass is still well polished, and stretches all the way from the ceiling to the floor in its gilded frame. He studies himself, the alien contentment on his face, and then takes out the pendant, the one his brother gave him so many years ago, the one he's been wearing against his skin ever since that brother died before his eyes. He twists it back and forth, letting the warm lamplight catch it at different angles. Death is just another release. Wherever he goes, wherever the reapers take him, he'll find his way to Sam, and Cas, loyal bastard that he is, is sure to follow.

He can't imagine a better future than that.

Castiel steps into the frame behind him, raising an eyebrow, and Dean turns around and kisses him, holding his face firmly with both hands. Castiel sighs into his mouth and closes his eyes. In the stillness of the moment, Dean almost feels as though he could say anything.

“I don't know what to do,” Castiel mutters. He circles his thumbs over Dean's jaw. “Dean, what can we do?”

Dean takes his hand and tugs him to the bed. He sits Castiel down and goes to rummage in the minibar – there's a whole bottle of champagne in there. They lounge on top of the covers together, drinking champagne from two flute glasses, then set them aside, wrap themselves around one another and kiss almost chastely until Dean is too tired to go on. They fall asleep like that, arms and legs intertwined, the lights still on, Castiel still clad in his coat and jacket.

It's the softest bed Dean's ever felt.

*

The next morning, one year to the day Lucifer strolled into the Winchesters' motel room and murdered Sam, Dean writes his bucket list.

It's very short.

_1\. Get good coffee_  
2\. Eat a burger  
3\. Fuck Cas 

He shows the list to Castiel, who shakes his head in fond exasperation. “I know where we can arrange to have numbers one and two fulfilled,” he says.

Dean jabs his finger emphatically at item number three.

Castiel actually smirks. “No promises.”

They walk to the coffeeshop, because there's no reason not to; they're in the only two people in this part of the city. Dean has his duffel slung casually over his shoulder and a pistol in one hand, and the wind whips dry and cold around the side of burned-out buildings and raises goosebumps on the back of his neck, sending dead leaves and old ragged strips of newspaper chasing each other down the barren streets. Castiel's trench coat clings to his legs and the gusts tousle and toy with his hair. Dean makes matters worse by ruffling it, and Castiel bats his hand away, grinning. Dean's shivering and flushed with cold, but he hardly feels it.

The coffeeshop has long since been boarded up, but Dean shatters the glass door with the butt of his gun and knocks the shards out of the frame with the duffel. He steps inside, triumphant, only to find Castiel already there, being a smug, teleporting angelic jerk.

It's dusty and dim and smells like old books inside, and they raid the storage room in the back for coffee grounds. Dean trips over Castiel walking to the counter and they have to go back for more. The machine still works, thankfully, and there's no running water but they wash the accumulated dust out of two mugs with water from their bottles.

The coffee isn't bad. Dean gives Castiel a thumbs up and reaches into his pocket for the list to cross off number one. And then something buckles at the edges of Dean's perception, and he whirls around, the pen skittering across the counter.

Lucifer unfolds himself from the void and, before Dean can even move, grabs Castiel by the throat and slams him down into the floorboards so hard the entire building rattles. Castiel yelps and seizes Lucifer's wrists, uselessly; the devil is impossibly stronger, and he keeps Castiel pinned to the floor with one hand and one knee as heat rolls off his skin in waves of stinking air, like a flame consuming rotten human flesh. The coffee machine whistles, jets hot water and then sparks electricity before it hisses one last time and smoke curls from the back. The glass in the windows begins to crack as he manifests his sword in his free hand.

“Dean,” Lucifer sighs, “you have been such a disappointment. I've given you a year and you've given me nothing but the paltriest of efforts. Is that what you call a fair exchange, Dean?”

Castiel's eyes roll in his head as Lucifer effortlessly, distractedly throttles him, kneeling on his chest. Dean takes a step forward, balling up his fists, and then finds himself frozen, just like last time, and he goes numb with terror.

“I expected heaven's champion to have a little more _drive_ ,” Lucifer continues, fixing Dean with a bladelike stare. “A little more _verve_. Bravery. But, ah—” He sniffs at the air, inhales great gulps of it into his lungs. “All I smell on you is fear. Weakness. Dependence. The same as the visit I paid to you a year ago. You don't know how to accept gifts when they're offered to you, Dean.”

Castiel is making small, pained choking noises. Lucifer smiles happily down at him.

“I forgive you, though,” he says. “I always have more to give.”

He drives his sword up to the hilt through Castiel's belly.

“ _Castiel!_ ”

It takes a moment for Dean to realize that scream came from his own throat, and by then, Lucifer is gone, his sword with him, and Dean is on his knees on the floor, pressing his hands against the wound as blood bubbles up between his fingers and escapes from under his palm.

“Cas, Cas,” he chants, his voice hoarse and rusty from its long slumber. “Hey, Cas. Look at me. You're going to be fine.”

“Dean?” Castiel asks dazedly. His head lolls as he gets a focus on Dean's face. “You're – talking.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees, and his brand new voice cracks. “I guess I am.” He notices the pool of blood seeping out from under Castiel's body – the sword impaled him all the way through his side. Shit. “Cas, we should get you to a hospital. Can you fly us there? I mean, you should still be able to—”

Castiel shakes his head almost imperceptibly. “The injuries to my physical form are... irrelevant. The sword damaged my true self. That will prove to... be the fatal wound.”

Something in Dean's head comes loose at that. “Bullshit,” he manages. “If you won't take us there, I'll patch you up myself. There has to be a first aid kid around here somewhere.”

“No!” Castiel forces out, and clutches at Dean's sleeve. “Stay with me, Dean. Look... look.”

Under Dean's very eyes, the stab wound seals itself, leaving a bloody mess but no gaping hole in Castiel's abdomen. Dean almost breaks into a smile, and then he notices the trembling of Castiel's hands, the sheen of sweat of on his face and his shallow, agonized gasps. He's not fine, but he's free of injury. It makes Dean want to shake him, makes him want to call down every angel in heaven until he finds one who can fix this, because he can't see what's hurting Castiel and he can't do anything about it.

“Stay with me,” Castiel repeats, gazing at him with such pleading desperation that Dean can do nothing but nod and resituate himself so that he's sitting cross-legged, cradling Castiel's head in his lap. He smoothes Castiel's damp hair away from his forehead.

“Of course I'll stay with you, Cas,” is all that Dean can say.

“You can talk,” Castiel says in exhausted wonderment, closing his eyes. “Would you talk to me?”

“Yeah, of course,” Dean says again, the words coming out gruff and painful. “What do you want me to say?”

“Anything. It's been... a very long time since I heard your voice.”

“Okay, um. Anything.” Dean shifts, watching Castiel, the tight, pained lines on his face. “Uh, you remember when I called you down to Bobby's salvage yard, and you made me swear that stupid oath? Dad took us down there when Sam and I were kids, I don't know, he must've been about six, and Bobby started us on a game of hide and go seek. Sam wasn't big on the outdoors, but he had to be the best at everything, so he climbed up to the car at the top of a stack and shut himself in the trunk.” Dean laughs, quietly, the taste of the memory bittersweet. “It locked on him, and of course it was at the far end of the yard. We were out there for hours trying to find him, and he was shouting for us the whole time but we couldn't hear him. In the end, I ran past that way and heard him thumping around in there.” He snorts, and feels tears pricking at edges of his eyes. “The funny thing is, he never got smarter.”

Castiel is quiet for a long moment. His head shifts in Dean's lap. “I'm sorry I wasn't there when Lucifer came for him.”

Dean swallows and blinks rapidly several times. “Hey, look. I – there's nothing you could've done, and you can't, you shouldn't blame yourself for that. Not for that or anything else, okay? It's all over. Don't think about that kind of thing right now.”

Castiel just coughs, a cough that sends shudders down his body, and he lets out a little whimper. Dean has to look away and take a moment to compose himself.

“When you first showed up afterward, I kinda hated you,” he says. “You wouldn't go away and you couldn't fix any of it. But after a while, I decided...” He clears his throat. “I decided maybe I liked you.”

“How... generous,” Castiel rasps.

“Don't get me wrong, though. You're still the most annoying prick of an angel I've ever met.”

“I know.”

“And you owe me a burger,” Dean adds. “As soon as you're feeling better, you're taking me out, because I definitely remember you saying you knew a place where we can get some.”

Castiel gives a rattling sigh, and there's a long, long silence. “I'm going to die,” he says at last, with resignation, with an infuriating _certainty_. “When it happens, my grace will explode.” Each word is punctuated by a harsh, gasping breath, dredged up with a visible struggle. “You should... leave before that occurs.”

A lump forms in Dean's throat and doesn't go away. “The only one talking about you dying here is you, Cas.”

“This is important, Dean. Your eyes could be burnt out.”

“Then you won't die,” Dean says. “Because I know you'd never hurt me.”

Castiel's eyes flutter closed and his jaw goes slack. Panicking, Dean grips him by the shoulders and shakes him, then slaps him lightly round the face. “Cas! Wake up, you bastard. You're not getting out of this that easily.” He exhales in relief as Castiel's eyes blink open again. “I still have more hilarious childhood stories to tell, dude, I don't think you want to miss them.”

“I would like to hear you laugh,” Castiel says.

Dean stares down at Castiel, the sallow tone to his skin, his labored breathing, the blood still smeared all over his ruined shirt and puddled on the floor. “I don't think I can.”

“Then,” Castiel suggests, “tell yourself a joke.”

Dean licks his lips. “Not really in the mood.”

“Please, Dean,” he says, breathlessly, like his lungs are closing up on him. “I want to hear it.”

“Uh.” Dean can't remember any of the good ones he's heard, all of a sudden, they've all fled his mind, and he knows he's picked up some gutbusters over the years. All that's left in his head are shitty blonde jokes. So he says, “There's this blonde chick, driving down the highway, and she sees this other blonde out in the middle of a cornfield in a rowboat with some paddles. She gets out of the car and she asks, what the fuck are you doing in the middle of a cornfield in a rowboat? And the other blonde is like, I'm rowing across this lake of corn.”

Castiel's face is pale but blank with incomprehension, and then his features twists in pain and he shudders, stifling a groan. Dean hurries on. “The first blonde unloads on her. You know, _you idiot! You're the reason blondes get such a bad rep!_ And she goes on and on, until she says, _If I could swim, I'd come give you a piece of my mind!_ ”

There's a lengthy pause.

“You're not laughing,” Castiel says.

“It wasn't very funny.”

“Tell me another.”

Dean does chuckle then, a small, humorless sound. “Wow. I guess you really missed my stupid voice.”

“I missed your voice every day,” Castiel says softly.

Dean strokes Castiel's hair with a shaking hand, and tries to close his eyes against the hot swell of tears, but it's no use; they come spilling out anyway. “I'm sorry,” he blurts. “I'm sorry I asked you to say fuck you to heaven and got you in a fight with archangels, I'm sorry Jimmy died, I'm sorry I couldn't speak to you, I'm sorry about Anna, I'm sorry I couldn't kill Lucifer. I'm sorry I didn't try hard enough and everything is fucked and you're here because of me, I'm so sorry.” His voice breaks and the tears are streaming down his cheeks. “Jesus, Cas, I'm so fucking sorry.”

“Oh, Dean,” Castiel sighs, and he reaches up with the last of his strength to caress his face. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You have no idea of the many ways in which you've blessed me.” He touches the pad of his thumb to Dean's lips. “I don't regret a single moment I spent with you.”

There's something weird about his eyes. Dean realizes with alarm that they're beginning to shine, that the whites are lighting up brighter than normal and an answering glow is blooming in his mouth. “Cas?”

“I want to thank you for this last blessing,” Castiel gasps around the light beaming from him. “Your voice, and your care. And I want you to know, Dean Winchester, that you are loved.”

“Cas, wait,” Dean croaks. “Wait.”

“Close your eyes, Dean,” Castiel says urgently. “Close your eyes!”

“No, wait,” Dean cries. “Cas, wait. Please. Wait! Cas, wait!”

“Close your eyes now, Dean!” Castiel screams, and Dean slams his eyes shut as the gleam intensifies to a light so bright he can see all the veins in his eyelids framed against the luminescent red of his own flesh, and then explodes outward, blistering the skin on his face, singeing his hair, knocking him back with the force of the blast. He can hear glass shattering and lightbulbs popping and chairs crashing to the floor. He's awash in light, a burning, illuminating, enveloping brilliance, embraced for the briefest of instants by an angel gone supernova. Then it's over, and the darkness behind Dean's eyelids is blacker than it's ever been before.

He stays where he is for a long time.

When Dean sits up, brushing glass fragments off himself, he sees Castiel's body, prone on the floor, head rolled limply to the side in Dean's lap. His eyes are open and staring blindly at the ceiling. There is no mistaking him for sleeping.

On either side of Dean, curved toward him almost protectively, lie the charred silhouettes of two great wings.

*

Dean salts and burns the body that belonged to Castiel and, before that, to a man named Jimmy Novak. He gives them the hunter's funeral they deserved. Before he sets the pyre ablaze, he presses one last kiss to Cas' cold lips.

He keeps the trench coat.

*

Dean Winchester walks out of the city into the fires of the apocalypse.

There is no mercy in his heart. There is no sympathy. There is no love. He is righteous, and he will find his vengeance, for his mother, for his father, for Anna, for Sam, for Castiel, for himself, for the world that has been slipping into chaos. He doesn't care that he has no weapon to bring down Lucifer, nor any leverage to use against Zachariah. It doesn't matter. He'll do it. He'll do it, because he's no longer unarmed.

He's not helpless. He can _speak_.

And he knows exactly what he's going to say.

 

 

End.


End file.
